The present invention relates generally to stationery products, and, more specifically, to mass produced business mailers.
Various businesses have various needs for mass mailing printed information to various recipients. For example, advertisements may be mailed to potential customers for announcing any desired advertised promotion. Utility companies send billing and other information to its customers. Employers send salary information to their employees, and, mail-order retailers send itemized billing information to their customers.
These are only examples of the variety of mass mailings which occur daily throughout the country. The variety of business mailers also varies, and includes the typical folded self-mailers and business reply mail which require different levels of confidentiality or sealing thereof.
For example, a simple folded mailer may be in the form of a single sheet of printed paper folded in half and joined together by glue, adhesive, tape, or staples. The edges of the folded sheet may be sealed locally or around the full perimeter thereof.
Since business mailing typically occurs in large periodic volume, high speed processing thereof is a significant objective. Correspondingly, minimizing costs is another important objective in mass mailings.
High speed printers are available in various conventional forms including high speed laser printers feeding cut sheet or continuous webs therethrough. A laser printer provides non-impact printing by hot fusing toner on the sheet as it is driven through the printer. High speed ink jet printers are also commonly available.
High speed printers typically operate at a printing speed in the range of 90 to 530 pages per minute, and therefore require significant precision of operation to avoid undesirable jamming of the sheets in the printing process. Accordingly, high speed printing is typically limited to the printing function on one or both sides of the face sheets carried through the printer, with subsequent operations then being required to complete the business mailer.
The printed sheets must be separately folded into the desired form and sealed in a suitable manner for delivery to the intended recipients. This overall process of printing and forming the business mailers requires a corresponding amount of processing time, labor, and associated costs.
Accordingly, it is desired to provide an improved business mailer for high speed production thereof.
A business mailer includes a face sheet having a strip of adhesive bonded to one side thereof along a corresponding edge. A liner is bonded to the face sheet atop the adhesive strip, and is severed around a central strip tab for being removed from a surrounding border of the liner for exposing the adhesive strip. This integrated construction may be printed at high speed following which the liner tab is removed and the face sheet folded to form an adhesively sealed business mailer.